WPA 2.0: Whoever Rules the Sewers Rules the City CompetitionSponsor: The Architect’s Newspaper, UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, Ziman Center for Real Estate Development Type: 2-stage Language: English Registration fee:
$40 – per student or independent team
$100 – professional team Eligibility: Designers of all fields are eligible to submit for this competition, which is staged in two phases. Multi-disciplinary teams are particularly encouraged. Awards:
$5,000 to as many as six professional competition finalists to continue to develop their proposals. Timetable:
24 July, 2009 – registration deadline
7 August, 2009 – proposals are due
21 August, 2009 – finalists announced
10 November, 2009 – phase 2 submittals due Jury:
Stan Allen – Principal, Stan Allen Architect; Dean, school of Architecture, Princeton University
Cecil Balmond – Deputy Chairman, Ove Arup and Partners
Elizabeth Diller – Principal, Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Walter Hood – Principal, Hood Design Urban Landscape + Site Architecture
Thom Mayne – Founder and Director of design, Morphosis
Marilyn Jordan Taylor – Consulting Partner, SOM; Dean, PennDesign, University of Pennsylvania Design Challenge:
WPA 2.0 encourages projects that explore the value of infrastructure not only as an engineering endeavor, but as a robust design opportunity to strengthen communities and revitalize cities. There is no requirement that proposals be located in the United States. Nevertheless, it will be important for designers to demonstrate the applicability of proposals located outside the United States to the United States context.
Beyond the mere replacement of obsolete or overtaxed infrastructure, WPA 2.0 seeks design ideas that exploit the opportunity for such solutions to be leveraged, through nested scales of thinking, into strategies that catalyze a larger and more visible public benefit. In this respect, it is looking for proposals that put architecture back to work through designs that:
– are embedded with added value (multifunctionality, imageability, public presence),
– represent potential prototypes, adaptable for use in numerous locations,
– are locally self-regulated and controlled (i.e. which “unlock” the grid),
– strategically attract investment and/or generate community stability, and
– generate new sustainability practices. Submission Requirements:
Proposals shall consist of a digital design sketchbook that outlines and illustrates:
– core premise and objectives (the problem addressed and its solutions),
– inventiveness,
– design approach, developed at a conceptual level, and
– opportunities for implementation (qualities that are tangible and concrete, such as why or how it might be financed)
The sketchbook should include both visual and textual information, with pages formatted vertically 8.5” by 11”: either in single sides or as double-page spreads. Its length must not exceed 10 sides. The digital file, in PDF format @ 300 dpi, should not exceed 10 MB. For more information, go to: http://wpa2.aud.ucla.edu/info/ |
SWA/Balsley Wins Paveletskaya Plaza Landscape Competition 
Aerial view at night – courtesy SWA/Balsley 5+ Design
Of the nine railway stations in Moscow, Paveletskaya is the largest and one of the last of those that opened around the turn of the century. Compared to other Moscow stations, Paveletskaya, designed by Alexander Krasovsky and opened in 1900, represented a lower-key presence in its sprawling configuration, similar to palaces such as a Sans Souci without the ornamentation. The original site for the recent competition included a small park facing the station, bordered on one side by the Ring Road. Post WWII, the site was bifurcated by a road, thus separating the front entrance of the station from the grassy area facing it. Read more… Young Architects in Competitions When Competitions and a New Generation of Ideas Elevate Architectural Quality
by Jean-Pierre Chupin and G. Stanley Collyer
published by Potential Architecture Books, Montreal, Canada 2020
271 illustrations in color and black & white
Available in PDF and eBook formats
ISBN 9781988962047
What do the Vietnam Memorial, the St. Louis Arch, and the Sydney Opera House have in common? These world renowned landmarks were all designed by architects under the age of 40, and in each case they were selected through open competitions. At their best, design competitions can provide a singular opportunity for young and unknown architects to make their mark on the built environment and launch productive, fruitful careers. But what happens when design competitions are engineered to favor the established and experienced practitioners from the very outset? This comprehensive new book written by Jean-Pierre Chupin (Canadian Competitions Catalogue) and Stanley Collyer (COMPETITIONS) highlights for the crucial role competitions have played in fostering the careers of young architects, and makes an argument against the trend of invited competitions and RFQs. The authors take an in-depth look at past competitions won by young architects and planners, and survey the state of competitions through the world on a region by region basis. The end result is a compelling argument for an inclusive approach to conducting international design competitions. Download Young Architects in Competitions for free at the following link: https://crc.umontreal.ca/en/publications-libre-acces/
Image Courtesy Network Rail
From Grand Central Station to King’s Cross in London, railway stations have often represented some of the major architectural accomplishments of our times. But those edifices have been primarily located in great cities. In the U.K. there are over 2,000 stations located in medium-sized, small, and rural communities. Most of those are ‘quick stop’ locations, and not the destination terminals where space requirements often result in state of the art design. In July of last year, U.K.’s Network Rail, in collaboration with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) launched a competition to identify a concept for a design that would be suitable for the medium to small-sized rail stations, at the same time updating the program to fit the modern needs of such a facility. The competition was open internationally and received 213 entries from 34 countries last September. Read more… The Urban Confluence Silicon Valley Competition
Urban Confluence Silicon Valley winner: ©SMAR Architecture Studio
After several stops and starts over an extended period of time, the winner of the Urban Confluence Design Competition was named in early March, 2021. SMAR Architecture Studio’s The Breeze of Innovation, which prevailed over two other shortlisted finalists from the original 963 entries, won with a novel tower-like structure consisting primarily of hundreds of rods, generating energy while swaying in the wind. Read More…
Pedestrian perspective
The result of an effort from a professor at the TUM (Technische Universität München) to restore the Budludzha Monument in Bulgaria, located in a remote location on a mountain top in that country, we discovered that it originally was the result of a 1959 design competition won by the young Bulgarian architect, Georgi Stoilov. Read more… A Flawed Plan Leads to Budget Issues
Competition rendering of project looking south to Mies museum ©Herzog de Meuron
Once considered on the forefront of modern architecture in post-WWII Europe, Berlin has had its share of questionable decisions concerning important urban projects in recent history. Beginning with the rebirth of the Berlin Palace (Humboldt Forum) on the Spree by Italian architect, Franco Stella, and now followed by Herzog de Meuron’s controversial addition to Mies’s 20th Century Art Museum, the times when one could look to Berlin as a signpost of architectural innovation can only be viewed in the rear view mirror.
Read more… |
